Wagner James Au reports on virtual worlds, VR & Internet culture

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Motus, a 3D Motion Controller for Games/Virtual Worlds That Could Revolutionize Machinima and Other Applications

What you're looking at below is a demo of Motus, a 3D motion controller that aims to revolutionize machinima, virtual worlds, and games. Like a super-charged Wii motion controller or a more immersive Kinect, Motus enables users to explore a 3D space as if their hand was a flying movie camera. Watch:

Developed by Matthew Bett, a lecturer with Abertay University in Scotland, Motus is actually a software package which uses the sixense truemotion controller, which should be on store shelves next year for about $100. “I was trying to think of better ways to use the motion controllers that we were starting to find info about at the time,” Bett tells me. “Games still seemed to be the arm-waving/fly-swatting variants we had already seen on the Wii. So I was trying to think of other applications of the controllers.”

The demo you see in the video was rendered in OpenGL, which is also the 3D graphics platform that Second Life uses, so it should be feasible to use Motus in SL: “We have considered Second Life as a potential avenue of development,” Bett tells me. “I don't see there being any technical problem making this a tool available to Second Life.”

More on Motus after the break:

“We are at a very basic prototype stage at the moment so I can't confirm any support for the Motus technique yet in forthcoming or existing titles,” Matt tells me. “That being said, it is a very non-invasive technology that can theoretically be implemented or patched into products with no major overhaul required.”

By creating an interface that makes it extremely easy to navigate a 3D space, it’s easy to imagine a number of applications Motus could be used for. However, Matt says, “[t]he original intent was to offer home gamers and machinima makers a tool that gave them new freedom to realize what they saw in their head. If (assuming we get the tool out there) some young person finds Motus gives him the ability to realise his vision and that puts him on a career path where he ultimately ends up as a movie director, that would be a great thing. I love the fact that we can potentially put a very cutting edge current technique into everyone's hands.”

Everyone should have access to the Motus software next year, Bett tells me, and his team is talking with people about potential partnerships -- check back here for updates.

Interesting stuff, it looks like a sort of cross between Kinect, Move and the Wii but for the PC.

But I have finally got my 3D Connexions Space Navigator and for now, that tool for Machinima making is my preferred method of input for SL. This could change that, but it would take some doing (depending on space and lighting requirements).

The thing I would be interested to see on this is if you could create basic .bhv motions with it, animating in SL is either done through traditional key frame animation (QAvimator, Poser) or through Motion Capture (which is easier but not exactly a cheap set up).

If this controller could do something that would be somewhere in between those two areas, allowing the user to create some basic animations that they could then build keyframes on, that would be an instant sell in my book.

Having used my SpaceNavigatorPE for about 3 years now, I just must recommend it as *THE* best way to maneuver a camera in any 3D environment. It's basically second nature once you learn it, and requires minimal actual movement. I don't think I would trade it for something like this.

August, at some point the Lab was working on Puppeteering, a feature that would allow you to drag and position the joints of your avatar in the client and save off poses as animation assets.

I don't know what the current status is -- I think it's on hold. But I believe the preliminary code has been used with a mocap rig to power real-time animation, and there's no reason it couldn't be adapted for another input device (albeit with less precision).

Side note: in the discussion section, somebody brings up the intriguing possibility of rigging a 'brainwave' toy as a controller in conjunction with Puppeteering. Whoever thought of that deserves a cookie. Whoever makes it work deserves a cookie factory.

Even though puppeteering is in 'hibernation', there may or may not be a region(s) where it is still enabled for testing purposes. I don't know much about the subject other than what I've read, but it certainly sounds like a worthy development target.